Using dd to write an iso to a USB stick

[Snowhog]

When dd'ing an .iso to a USB stick, does it need to be formatted first, and if so, what format? FAT32?

[oshunluvr]

No. dd wipes the format. Also, point dd at the device - not a partition, as in:

dd bs=4M if=xenial-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdb

[Snowhog]

Thank you. Yes, I already knew about dd'ing to the device, and not a partition on the device.

I'm going to again, for the umpteenth time, attempt to get a fully installed and working Arch Linux with KDE Plasma, this time as a full install on my older Toshiba laptop.

[Feathers McGraw]

That's a brave move! I've never dabbled with Arch, how far did you get last time and what are your impressions?

Also, I recently learned that a progress indicator has been added to new versions of dd in coreutils >8.42 (at last!), so you can amend oshunluvr's example slightly:

dd bs=4M if=xenial-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdb status=progress

[Snowhog]

The Toshiba laptop isn't my primary PC (or main laptop); my iMac is, and I run Kubuntu in an Oracle Virtualbox VM on it. My 'main' laptop is the HP. It is running Kubuntu 16.04.

The USB stick has been dd'd, and the Toshiba, once changing the boot order in the BIOS, boots from it just fine. But, in my office area, I'm connected to our home network wirelessly, and I haven't yet figured out how to get Arch to establish a wireless connection to it. Running wifi-menu shows me available networks, and one is ours (hidden). I can select it and it prompts for the passphrase, which I input and it saves. But, issuing the systemctl command to start the service fails.

I know I'm just missing something. I'm not sweating it, and, if I decide to, I can take the laptop upstairs and connect it to my Time Capsule (Apple) and work from a wired connection. But, I'd rather get the wireless connection functioning (with Arch) and do it in my office; just more convenient.

[Qqmike]

Yes, dd works bit by bit, writing each bit of the "if" to the "of" no matter what is on the "of." dd will completely copy any and all formatting, codes, flags, signatures, and whatever else is on the "if." And it starts "at the beginning" of the "of."

Nice tip about status=progress, thanks, Feathers McGraw. Would be nice to have the progress built in to dd (which is also available in other ways with dd: pv, dcfldd, etc.). My 14.04 is still at coreutils 8.21, though.

Finally, the power of old habits!
Look at this: dd bs=4M if=etc of=etc

That hurts my brain! I'm too used to placing bs at the end, after the of=etc, but I can cope if necessary.

[Feathers McGraw]

A couple of days ago I tried using the progress switch (in 15.10) but got the message it was unknown.

Which version was/is it? I'm running openSUSE tumbleweed at the moment, which has coreutils 8.25. If it's not in 15.10, I guess it will land in 16.04 (not long now - April!).

[Qqmike]

Delayed response (as yesterday was kind of hectic for me) ...

The original (OP) question of proper format/filesystem for a dd'd drive is a good one. For SteveRiley's explanation of what is going on with the iso's dd'd image regarding drive format see Posts #1 and #2 here:

https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...aller-using-dd

(This was back when I first discovered the power and convenience of using dd for live iso images rather than Unetbootin/Whatever. SteveRiley was one of the first here to advocate use of dd for this.)

[vinnywright]

coreutils-8.25-2ubuntu2

from "man dd"

status=LEVEL
The LEVEL of information to print to stderr; 'none' suppresses everything but error messages, 'noxfer' sup‐
presses the final transfer statistics, 'progress' shows periodic transfer statistics

this in 16.04

VINNY